Review: The Shack by William P. Young

Title: The Shack
Author: William P. Young
Published: June 20, 2008
Publisher: Windblown Media
Pages: 272
Genre: Christian
Review: ebook from library
Buy Links: Amazon, Amazon.uk

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!

I saw the trailer to this book and decided I needed to read it. Just by seeing the trailer I hoped that the book would be just as good as it seemed the movie might be. 

My heart went out to Mack on so many levels. How many times does something bad happen to us and we blame God? I know I have done that. Though it seems that God has a purpose for everything. He gave us independence to make the choices we make and with that will come heartache, mistakes, happiness, pain, love and so much more. It is what makes us human. Though God never has given up his love for us no matter what. He is there though thick and thin, through trails and tribulations, through our heartache and blessings. 

This story is told through Willie Mack's friend. We learn what happened to make Mack fall into the Great Sadness and because of this Great Sadness Mack is dealing with a lot. Though he is not the only one though it may seem like it.

When he gets a note delivered to him to go to the one place that has bad memories for him he is reluctant to go but he does. This trip to the shack is place where he will find himself closer to God and learn a very important lesson. He learns of God's love, forgiveness, and why God does what he does. At times I felt like Mack on trying to understand God and how he or she works. Then it would click for me. 

I didn't feel that religion was being forced down my throat so that was a plus, just a simple book of a father, husband, friend, person trying to find a way to heal after the tragedy of losing his daughter. 

A few quotes that I loved. 

"Love that is forced is no love at all."

"There is something joyful about storms that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance, demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules."

"He was a rich man, he thought to himself, in all the ways that mattered."

"I thought the way I grew up was 'normal' but I think most would probably agree that my history and journey have been a bit unusual."
We live in a world where 'normal' does not truly exist except as a concept or wishful thought. For each of us, where and how we grew up plays a foundational role in our sense of 'normal', and only when we begin to experience the 'bigness and diversity' of the world are we tempted to evaluate our roots.
I thought the way I grew up was 'normal' but most would probably agree that my history and journey have been a bit unusual. The eldest of four, born May 11th, 1955, in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, the majority of my first decade was lived with my missionary parents in the highlands of Netherlands New Guinea (West Papua), among the Dani, a technologically stone age tribal people. These became my family and as the first white child and outsider who ever spoke their language, I was granted unusual access into their culture and community. Although at times a fierce warring people, steeped in the worship of spirits and even occasionally practicing ritualistic cannibalism, they also provided a deep sense of identity that remains an indelible element of my character and person.
By the time I was flown away to boarding school at age 6, I was in most respects a white Dani. In the middle of a school year, my family unexpectedly returned to the West. My father worked as a Pastor for a number of small churches in Western Canada and by the time I graduated, I had already attended thirteen different schools. I paid my way through Bible College working as a radio disc jockey, lifeguard and even a stint in the oil fields of northern Alberta. I spent one summer in the Philippines and another touring with a drama troupe before working in Washington D.C. at Fellowship House, an international guesthouse. Completing my undergraduate degree in Religion, I graduated summa cum laude from Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon.
The following year, I met and married Kim Warren and for a time worked on staff at a large suburban church while attending seminary. I have owned businesses and worked for others in diverse industries, from insurance to construction, venture capital companies to telecom, contract work to food processing; whatever was needed to help feed and house our growing family. I have always been a writer, whether songs, poetry, short stories or newsletters; never for public consumption but for friends and family. While I have extensively written for business, creating web content, business plans, white papers etc., The Shack was a story written for my six children, with no thought or intention to publish. No one is more surprised that I am now considered an 'author'. The truth is, I am a rather simple guy; I have one wife, six kids, two daughter-in-laws, a son-in-law and six grandkids, and incredible friends and extended family surround us. New friends, like you, are part of our expanding world and adventure.
These are some of the facts of my life, but they don't begin to tell the real story. That would take much more room than is available here. The journey has been both incredible and unbearable, a desperate grasping after grace and wholeness. These facts don't tell you about the pain of trying to adjust to different cultures, of life losses that were almost too staggering to bear, of walking down railroad tracks at night in the middle of winter screaming into the windstorm, of living with an underlying volume of shame so deep and loud that it constantly threatened any sense of sanity, of dreams not only destroyed but obliterated by personal failure, of hope so tenuous that only the trigger seemed to offer a solution. These few facts also do not speak to the potency of love and forgiveness, the arduous road of reconciliation, the surprises of grace and community, of transformational healing and the unexpected emergence of joy.
The data of history might help you understand where a person has been, but often hide who they actually are. The Shack and Cross Roads will tell you much more about me than a few facts ever could, but a writer is always more, intentionally illusive behind the curtain of words. For me as a human being, everything is about Jesus and Father and Holy Spirit, about relationships, and to live is to participate in an adventure of faith which can only be experienced inside one day's worth of grace at a time. Aspirations of success, visions of significance and dreams of grandeur all died a long time ago and I have absolutely no interest in resurrecting them. I have finally figured out that I have nothing to lose by living a life of faith and trust. I know more joy every minute of every day than seems appropriate, but I love the wastefulness of my Papa's grace and presence.